Poll: Evolve. A Possible Problem? (Poll).

[Colin Bagley]

I am super excited for this game, which got some major coverage at the last E3.

http://evolvegame.com/

Basics, in-case you don't know:
It's a 4 vs 1 online multiplayer game, where one side is made up of 4 different Hunter Classes, playing FPS. They are pitted against the last player, who's a large monster, playing in 3rd person.

The Monster starts off first, and must run away, because he's weaker than the Hunters.
Then the Hunters drop in after a short delay, and must catch and kill the Monster before it is able to "Evolve" (Level Up), and become more of an equal threat.

The levels played in are supposed to contain a plethora of natural hazards, either in the form of wild life, or just getting lost.

Oh, and the Hunters get jet packs.


So needless to say, I'm really looking forward to this game, as I've not seen anything like it before. (Not saying that there hasn't been. Just I haven't seen it.


However, I see one Major Problem.
Hunter to Monster ratio.
Each Hunt will need 4 times as many Hunter Players as Monster Players. So there NEEDS to be 4 times as many Players who are happy to be Hunters, than want to be the Monster.

The reason why this is a problem, is that it seems the USP is getting to play as the Monster. That's why people will flock to this potential masterpiece. I mean; I'd much rather play the Monster, personally. If I'm endlessly only able to play as the Hunters, I'd feel that I'm really missing out.

But also, if the Player is looking for a Co Op gaming exp, they're spoiled for choice. The Next Assassin's Creed, Tom Clancy shooter, and the hugely anticipated Destiny, all boast Co Op gaming. (And most of them co op shooters too.)
I'm sure you see why it might be difficult to meet the 4-1 ratio, AND keep every player happy with their designated role.


This is why I'm setting up this Poll.
I want to know how many Escapists are most excited for each Evolve Roll.



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Edit:
If you don't care if you get assigned Monster or Hunter, Then vote for one of the Hunters. Because you won't be dissapointed if you don't get the Monster, which is the main focus of my Post.

 

[Elfgore]

I can see monster winning this hands down. I also thought of this issue, but I'm guess they have some backup plans. First, I'm guessing there will be something of a "story" mode where you can play as whoever you want against nothing but AI. So that way you can get your monster fix. Not against human players sure, but you gotta take what you get in uncontrollable situations like this. This situation kinda reminds me of Primal Carnage since everyone wants to play as the Dinosaurs and getting the humans sucks as well. As long as they make it fun to play as the hunters, I can see everything working out.

I'm personally going to try and play as the monster as much as possible, but fail that. I'd be cool playing the Support. I'm just excited to see what the other three monsters are.

 

[Colin Bagley]

A Story Mode might help a bit. But I've not seen anything about an Offline mode currently.

I've not played Primal Carnage. But another eg that springs to mind is the Snake Hunting mode on Metal Gear Solid 4's Online mode.
It's supposed to be 2 teams of 8 soldiers going head to head, while also trying to kill a 9th player who's Snake.
However, most people joined the lobby for just long to see that they're not Snake. Then quit. Then it ended up being a 2 vs 2 vs Snake, since nobody wanted to be a standard Merc'.


However, the Evolve Classes do all look really fun.

Bringing the fire power as the heavy weapons Assault guy looks fun.

Getting to be the most useful guy around, as the Medic. Basking in the appreciation of your heavily bleeding team-mates.

Making everybody generally better as Support, without actually being too dangerous yourself, lets you take credit for their accomplishments. Always a nice feeling.

Or basically trolling the Monster by debuffing his movements with the Trapper.


All look good.
Just Monster looks more interesting.
Also the competition for those roles, from other games entirely.

 

[Johnny Impact]

Your poll should have an "all of the above" option. If I'm playing with friends, it doesn't matter who is doing what job, we're having fun. We all enjoy versus Left 4 Dead matches. While we each have our favorites (Francis and Boomer being mine) what we really enjoy is each other's company. Should be the same here.

Of the hunters, so far I like the Trapper concept best. The monsters are very mobile, able to get into and out of fights. Being the guy who denies that escape, tethering the monster in the right place at the right moment so the team can pour bullets on it....yeah, I think I'll enjoy that.

 

[Elfgore]

A Story Mode might help a bit. But I've not seen anything about an Offline mode currently.

I've not played Primal Carnage. But another eg that springs to mind is the Snake Hunting mode on Metal Gear Solid 4's Online mode.
It's supposed to be 2 teams of 8 soldiers going head to head, while also trying to kill a 9th player who's Snake.
However, most people joined the lobby for just long to see that they're not Snake. Then quit. Then it ended up being a 2 vs 2 vs Snake, since nobody wanted to be a standard Merc'.


However, the Evolve Classes do all look really fun.

Bringing the fire power as the heavy weapons Assault guy looks fun.

Getting to be the most useful guy around, as the Medic. Basking in the appreciation of your heavily bleeding team-mates.

Making everybody generally better as Support, without actually being too dangerous yourself, lets you take credit for their accomplishments. Always a nice feeling.

Or basically trolling the Monster by debuffing his movements with the Trapper.


All look good.
Just Monster looks more interesting.
Also the competition for those roles, from other games entirely.

The wikipedia page said they are planning a singleplayer story, but no news yet.

Left 4 Dead always required teamwork as the weak survivors. Looks like this will require even more. I mean, if a trapper throws one of those domes at the wrong time. He/She fucks up their entire team and gets some of them killed. They seem to be putting a lot of effort towards making the classes unique and interesting to play as.

 

[II2]

I want to be the monster / goon / "it".

How many times have I been a first person shooter class, compared to a Kraken?

That said, as long as there's some kind of 'rotation points' counter to let people have their go I figure it should work out OK. When I first heard about commander mode in the battlefield 2, I thought "shit, everyone's going to want to be commander" ... In truth, the silent majority were happy just to play and the concern became getting someone to take on the role and who could do it well.

Now, BIG difference, between RTS spectator + supply drop mode in a big FPS vs getting to play Cthulhu, but the point that the design and emergent player behavior tends to balance these things we worry about before release, in regards to our hopes for such titles.

Ahh well, fingers crossed.

 

[Zhukov]

Ohh, I dunno, I watched a big chunk of gameplay footage and I gotta say, playing as the monster actually looked a bit annoying.

Having your irrecoverable health constantly drained by a barrage of pin pricks from these little hard-to-hit targets that can turn invulnerable, go invisible and revive each other.

 

[BiggyShackleton]

To me, the Support class seems the most confusing. I can understand how the Trapper, Medic, and Assault classes work, though; the Trapper slows down the enemy long enough for the Assault to finish it off, while the Medic heals and revives teammates if necessary. Unfortunately, I just don't know how the Support works, other than that I was told that it backs up the other three classes, even though I don't know how.

I mean, is the Support class the well-balanced class? What is it good at compared to the other three character classes?

As far as I can tell the Support can debuff the monster, buff the entire team (one example I read was team cloaking as opposed to the Medic being able to cloak just himself) and utilise abilities like Sentry Guns. Generally the Support will control the flow of the fight, while helping set ambushes and defending the Generator with sentries.

I'm more excited to play as a Hunter against an actual opponent, regardless of which role I get.

 

[zumbledum]

yeah this games going to be fun if your a group of 4 , dont think it will be worth looking at for anyone else tbh.

i like asymmetrical games, L4d and natural selection etc but i don't think this ones going to work. there is just no way random groups of 4 stay together in an open environment. in L4d the levels are long and relatively narrow and your going from A to B. there's just always going to be one special snowflake or free spirit in any PUG.

then there's the dlc issue http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/136058-Evolve-Will-Have-Lots-of-DLC

so yeah, get the GOTY edition when the whole games finally released a year after launch.

 

[Majinash]

So this seems like the love child of Left 4 Dead and Giants: Citizen Kabuto.

I'm really excited about this game. I put a lot of hours into both of those games, so if it captures the feel of either I think I'll love it.

 

[Tohuvabohu]

Evolve is definitely one of the more interesting games coming up. I'm a sucker for asymmetrical vs games, so this one has caught my eye for awhile.

But, I too have big concerns about this that could potentially ruin the game if not handled well.

To put it simply, no matter how much fun and effective the Hunters will be, the Monsters will always be the most popular. It's the most unique and most badass choice. I could be wrong in this, but I definitely see the Monsters being the most popular by a very wide margin.

The reason this worries me is because this was a HUGE problem in Left 4 Dead. It honestly made me stop playing the multiplayer entirely, so I don't know if there was ever any kind of fixes applied. But the problem wasn't with the game, at least not really, the game itself was fine. But it was the community. The inherent community shittiness just ended up ruining a lot of potential the multiplayer had in that game.

The problem was that the Infected were far more interesting and fun to play than the Survivors. And the community of assholes would do whatever they possibly could to play the Infected, or not play at all.

Spoiler: A lobby starts up....

-Infected team fills up immediately.
-Anyone who didn't instantly secure a spot would instantly quit the lobby. "I can't play as an infected? Fuck this." There's been many times I sat in a lobby for more than 5 minutes, watching people enter the lobby only to leave it immediately because the infected spots were full. Eventually, you gather a group of knuckleheads who don't quit immediately and the game starts.
-But the problem continues. The Survivor team, does not want to play as survivors. So you get a team of people who make suicidal dashes towards the end of the level. Or intentionally play so fucking poorly as to get themselves killed immediately in order to play as Infected as soon as possible.

So you're left with this cycle of games that end in 3 minutes because the Survivor team doesn't want to be survivors. And then the entire infected team quits the game the moment the round ends. Other people may have had more favorable experiences than me, but this was what I encountered most of the time. Everyone fucking loses.

When it comes to most asymmetrical vs. games, I'm used to the fact that one side tends to be more popular to play than the other. But I've never encountered such a concentrated bunch of shitheads so intent on ruining the fucking game.

I think the mindset with Left 4 Dead however, is that playing VS mode as survivors, is almost literally the same thing as playing the game normally. It's the same gameplay, and the same maps. Whereas playing as the infected is a completely different and unique experience. Left 4 Dead's standard gameplay is not very remarkable and is rather incredibly standard. I think that harms the game when it comes to VS mode because the gameplay will already feel somewhat stale and tired, and everyone will have played the game normally already and will want to try something new.

Community shittiness will always be hard to curb. But, in Evolve's case, it might not be nearly as big of a problem. First, the hunters contain unique classes with their own loadouts and abilities. And there are apparently several characters within each class, each of which plays differently from the other. So even if you are playing Hunters for a long time before getting to play as the Monster, you have a lot of choices to keep the experience on your end fresh.

It probably won't stop people from instantly quitting the game the moment their turn as the Monster is up though.

The potential problem to this game though, is how will the game decide who to give control of the Monster to?
How is it going to ensure that everyone gets a turn to play?
How will it prevent people from playing as Hunters a dozen times before playing as the Monster once?
Is it going to be completely random? Will one guy get to play as the Monster 3 times before one guy plays the Monster even once?
Or will it be random, followed by a process of elimination? (Such as I played the monster once, then I'm unable to play the Monster again until everyone else has had their chance.)
Are we going to let the players pick? This might be okay for private matches with that kind of option enabled.

I think what might work best is for the Monster to be given to a completely random player. Who will then be eliminated from playing the Monster again until everyone else in the game has had their chance. I dunno. It concerns me how a shitty community could end up ruining a game like this because someone can't play as the monster immediately all the time always.

 

[Colin Bagley]

yeah this games going to be fun if your a group of 4 , dont think it will be worth looking at for anyone else tbh.

i like asymmetrical games, L4d and natural selection etc but i don't think this ones going to work. there is just no way random groups of 4 stay together in an open environment. in L4d the levels are long and relatively narrow and your going from A to B. there's just always going to be one special snowflake or free spirit in any PUG.

then there's the dlc issue http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/136058-Evolve-Will-Have-Lots-of-DLC

so yeah, get the GOTY edition when the whole games finally released a year after launch.

Keeping the group together was a concern for me too. But then I watched some footage.
Vs the Kraken. It's far from stealthy, and throws bright flashy lightning bolts around which also make a sound. More easily noticed from range. So all 4 Hunters "SHOULD" know where it is, and give chase.
Vs the Goliath. It leaves Footprints which fade over time. But can be seen easily (They Glow), if you're close by. So again, all Hunters should be able to keep track of it OK.

And then there's the Trapper, with either plantable Radar Pylons. Or an AI gribbly which sniffs it out and gives chase.
It's not hard for the Hunters to know they should pay attention to where the Trapper is going, and follow their lead.

Ofc, we don't know about the 3rd Monster, and 3rd character for each Class.

 

[Colin Bagley]

-Snip-

Even if the have a system where the Monster player can't be Monster again until everybody else has had a go, they might still quit and make their own lobby again.
If everybody has that option, then you'd still see a load of empty lobbies. Although, it would rather fix the problem somewhat, as it would encourage Hunters to keep playing, while waiting for their turn.

I don't know if I want the option to host Private games, where the Host get's first pick of Character/ Monster.
On one hand- I'd like it for Myself. Because I'd want to play Monster most of the time.
But on the other hand- it would negativly effect the overall game. For all the reasons we seem to have a rough consensus of in this thread.

However, the Poll does give me hope. I expected there to be 80+ % Monster. But 56% is more encouraging. It's still too high, But it's closer to the 20% that it would NEED to be.

 

[Trude]

Left 4 Dead always required teamwork as the weak survivors. Looks like this will require even more. I mean, if a trapper throws one of those domes at the wrong time. He/She fucks up their entire team and gets some of them killed. They seem to be putting a lot of effort towards making the classes unique and interesting to play as.

The survivors were hardly "weak." A great player could fire three rounds and save three teammates. As it stands with Evolve, I'm seeing it a fair bit skewed to the monster since the mechanics don't punish sloppy monster play as much as sloppy hunters. If a fight isn't going the monster's way, it can outrun damage rather easily even when slowed. If forced into a fight, the arena is large enough to give the hunters the run around until it goes away. The extreme mobility of the monster lets a smart player manipulate these arena by avoiding open areas when the arena is deployed.
The game needs a lot of fine tuning and player learning of the mechanics. The hunters will grow smarter, I just think the monster will grow smarter faster.

 

[Tohuvabohu]

Even if the have a system where the Monster player can't be Monster again until everybody else has had a go, they might still quit and make their own lobby again.
If everybody has that option, then you'd still see a load of empty lobbies. Although, it would rather fix the problem somewhat, as it would encourage Hunters to keep playing, while waiting for their turn.

I don't know if I want the option to host Private games, where the Host get's first pick of Character/ Monster.
On one hand- I'd like it for Myself. Because I'd want to play Monster most of the time.
But on the other hand- it would negativly effect the overall game. For all the reasons we seem to have a rough consensus of in this thread.

However, the Poll does give me hope. I expected there to be 80+ % Monster. But 56% is more encouraging. It's still too high, But it's closer to the 20% that it would NEED to be.

As far as I know, how the game goes about giving control of the Monster to players still has not been talked about. It may seem like a minor thing in the grand scheme of how the game is designed and how it plays, but I believe it's HUGE DEAL. and I only hope Turtle Rock handles this well. Asymmetrical games are great, but there's far too much counting on players not being shitheads in order for the experience not to be completely fucking ruined.

So, I think there needs to be a somewhat heavy-handed approach taken here to ensure the game remains fair, and fun for everyone. People should be playing Evolve for the whole package, not just to play as the Monster over and over. Here's a few rough ideas,

-There needs to be a matchmaking. I was thinking there should be no lobby browsing whatsoever, but this may be too rough for people with spotty internet connections. At the very least there should be a matchmaking function that pairs people together, and begins matches with vanilla rules. Perhaps custom lobbies can be kept around for people who wish to play solely with friends, with different rules and whatnot. I don't see any detriment to this.

-Once you enter a lobby chosen by Matchmaking, there is no team choosing of any kind. Unlike Left 4 Dead. People enter the game, once the lobby fills up, it goes straight into a load screen. No one knows who is going to be the monster.

-As the game is loading, the game randomly chooses a player to hand Monster control to. (Thus beginning the process of elimination)

And that's it. You look for a game, enter a lobby, and no team choosing of any kind is allowed and no one knows who will be the monster until the match has started.

And hell, I think there should be even more to keep people from ruining the experience.

Such as a punishment system, which has become pretty common in many multiplayer games. If a person is a consistent quitter, then the game will begin reducing their priority to become the monster again. The more a person quits, the less and less chance they have to play as the monster. This could also effect people who leave games the moment their turn as the monster is up. If you leave and enter a new match, you have ZERO chance of immediately playing as the monster again.

Perhaps my bad experiences with other players is making me unreasonably sour. But here's an example of what I mean. Splinter Cell: Blacklist had a huge problem with ragequitters. The problem, was an epidemic. So many games would go completely unfinished because people would leave the game the instant the going got rough. So, Ubisoft's rather interesting solution to the problem was to completely remove the QUIT button from the START MENU. So if you wanted to leave the game, you had to exit the game completely or turn your console off. It didn't stop ragequitting completely, but it did have a noticeable effect.

Aaaand this is what I mean by there being too much counting on other players not being shitheads in order for the experience not to be destroyed. All I'm saying is, I hope this is given the attention it deserves.

 

[Lil_Rimmy]

I'm really excited for this game, but I don't really see what the whole problem is with the Hunters vs Monster. It should be a REALLLLLLLLY simple system to switch. Hell, this was used back in Battlefront.

Here how it goes:
People join lobby. A random player is picked:

"Do you want to play as the monster? Y/N?"
If he says yes, then he is the monster. If he doesn't, he is a Hunter and the next player is picked.
And so on until a monster is picked.

Now, you complete a round. Then you go back to the screen, same thing happens but the player who was the monster last time gets last pick. Then the next round. And so on.

So basically it's just a random pick and rotation, allowing for players to choose what they wanna be and also not rush the monster slot. The only question remains is what if everyone wants to be Hunter? Well, then the game force picks, and will not pick the player who was monster last so that they get a shot at Hunter.

I'll be VERY surprised if they don't go with a system like this or at least close, and I will be very disappointed if in public (or private without the proper settings) you can just hotseat into the monster spot.